On terminal apt shows upgradable while Software Updater says "The software on this computer is up to date."

Question

I ran Software Updater it showed "The software on this computer is up to date" then on terminal I ran sudo apt list --upgradable which shows eight up-gradable packages.

So I ran sudo apt upgrade and eight packages were updated

On Terminal:

$ sudo apt list --upgradable
Listing... Done
gir1.2-packagekitglib-1.0/bionic-updates 1.1.9-1ubuntu2.18.04.4 amd64 [upgradable from: 1.1.9-1ubuntu2.18.04.3]
gstreamer1.0-packagekit/bionic-updates 1.1.9-1ubuntu2.18.04.4 amd64 [upgradable from: 1.1.9-1ubuntu2.18.04.3]
libpackagekit-glib2-18/bionic-updates 1.1.9-1ubuntu2.18.04.4 amd64 [upgradable from: 1.1.9-1ubuntu2.18.04.3]
packagekit/bionic-updates 1.1.9-1ubuntu2.18.04.4 amd64 [upgradable from: 1.1.9-1ubuntu2.18.04.3]
packagekit-tools/bionic-updates 1.1.9-1ubuntu2.18.04.4 amd64 [upgradable from: 1.1.9-1ubuntu2.18.04.3]
python3-update-manager/bionic-updates,bionic-updates 1:18.04.11.7 all [upgradable from: 1:18.04.11.6]
update-manager/bionic-updates,bionic-updates 1:18.04.11.7 all [upgradable from: 1:18.04.11.6]
update-manager-core/bionic-updates,bionic-updates 1:18.04.11.7 all [upgradable from: 1:18.04.11.6]
$

Both

Why this difference in Software Updater (update-manager) and Apt outputs?

Run sudo apt list --upgradable and determine which packages are ready to upgrade. — Kulfy, Nov 19 '18 at 20:42
Read up on apt full-upgrade https://askubuntu.com/questions/770135/apt-full-upgrade-versus-apt-get-dist-upgrade — Jos, Nov 19 '18 at 20:42
@kulfi I will do it next time since at present I already did sudo apt upgrade — Vijay, Nov 19 '18 at 22:32

Elder Geek · Answer 1 · 2018-11-19T22:07:36.143

0

The command sudo apt install expects at least one package name to install after the install keyword. See man apt . Here's an excerpt.

install, remove, purge (apt-get(8)) Performs the requested action on one or more packages specified via regex(7), glob(7) or exact match. The requested action can be overridden for specific packages by append a plus (+) to the package name to install this package or a minus (-) to remove it.

Nothing is upgraded because you didn't ask for that and nothing is removed because you didn't ask for that either. Nothing is installed since you told it to install in effect nothing, which it did.

You might also find these related posts interesting:

What is the difference between apt and apt-get?

What is the difference between Software Updater and Ubuntu Software Updates?

Sources:

man apt

http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/xenial/man8/apt.8.html

Further reading:

https://itsfoss.com/apt-vs-apt-get-difference/

https://salsa.debian.org/apt-team/apt/blob/master/README.md

edited Nov 19 '18 at 22:07

answered Nov 19 '18 at 21:20

Elder Geek

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I know but this gives info about upgrade status and I upgraded by sudo apt upgrade and it did upgrade 19 packages. – Vijay Nov 19 '18 at 21:31
I am wondering about the difference in two outputs. – Vijay Nov 19 '18 at 21:39
@Hobbyist I think you'll find the man page clarifies things pretty well. Since apt is meant to be an interactive end user interface it can happily provide more output than possibly anticipated. As far as I can tell, any successful call to apt provides number of packages upgraded, newly installed, to remove and not upgraded. I'm sure we could delve into the source code to prove this. It can even tell you about packages that were automatically installed and are no longer required and prompt you to autoremove them. – Elder Geek Nov 19 '18 at 22:02
1

Thanks Elder Geek. I got the answer at Update-manager does not show all updates – Vijay Nov 21 '18 at 11:59
@Hobbyist Always Eager to help. – Elder Geek Nov 21 '18 at 22:21

On terminal apt shows upgradable while Software Updater says "The software on this computer is up to date."

1 Answers1